Spain-based bank Banco Santander has made a strategic investment of more than €5m ($6.7m) in Sweden-based social payments company Izettle, taking its known funding to over $50m.
Ramón Tellaeche, head of Santander Cards at Banco Santander, said: “Millions of small business owners and professionals in the markets where we operate need an alternative to conventional credit card terminals, and simple software to manage and analyze their transactions. We are strongly committed to innovation that satisfies emerging needs of our customers, we believe Izettle’s innovative mobile technologies will be crucial to those merchants’ near and long term success.”
Jacob de Geer, co-founder and chief executive officer of Izettle, said: “We want to bring iZettle to the world, and to do that we must have strategic partnerships with the world’s leading banks. Our relationship with Banco Santander is central to our transition from local to multinational services.”
In previous investment rounds, US-based credit card company American Express (Amex) joined peer MasterCard in October 2012, providing an undisclosed amount to join Izettle’s series B round that initially closed in 2011 at €25m ($32m).
Alongside the two card companies in the B round were local bank SEB’s Private Equity unit and venture capital firms Greylock Partners, Northzone Ventures, Creandum and Index Ventures. Index and Creandum had provided about $15m in the A round to Izettle.